The Los Angeles Lakers have found their next coach in former Milwaukee Bucks assistant coach Darvin Ham.
The two parties have said to have agreed to a four-year deal.
The Lakers fired Frank Vogel after a miserable 33-49 season for the team in which they failed to make the playoffs.
He spent three seasons as the coach, guiding them to the NBA title in 2020 inside the Orlando bubble.
Darvin Ham has now been tasked with turning their fate around.
The 48-year-old does not have any head coaching experience but has been an NBA assistant coach for the past 11 seasons, including two seasons (2011-13) with the Lakers.
He had been with the defending champions Bucks since 2018.
Darvin Ham and the Lakers have to contend with a number of different problems including figuring out how to get the best out of LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and Rusell Westbrook (if he is not traded).
The trio failed to live up to the hype during a season where Lebron and Davis spent most of the time on the treatment table.
James only played in 56 of the Lakers’ 82 games, while Davis played just 40 in another injury-plagued season.
The Lakers also do not have a pick in next month’s NBA Draft.
They moved their first-round pick to the New Orleans Pelicans in the deal to land Davis, while their second-round pick currently belongs to the San Antonio Spurs.
Darvis Ham now has to sort all that out as the Lakers have better aspirations than making the play-in games given their 17 NBA titles, 19 conference titles, and 33 division titles.
Ham played eight seasons in the NBA, making his debut with the Denver Nuggets in the 1996-97 season after he went undrafted out of Texas Tech.
He averaged 2.7 points and 2.3 rebounds in 417 career games (45 starts) for the Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, Washington Wizards, Bucks, Atlanta Hawks, and Detroit Pistons.
